International Contract Agency
The International Contract Agency (ICA) is a global conglomerate of hitmen and professional assassins, whose services are extended to wealthy and influential customers around the world. Motto The Agency's motto, the Latin, "Merces Letifer" means literally, "lethal trade". Background ICA, also known simply as “The Agency”, is Agent 47's employer. It is a worldwide, well-funded clandestine operation organization, with underlying connections to the foreign legion, providing assassination and mercenary services; Credited assassinations have taken place in the Americas, the Pacific Rim, and Eurasia. The Agency enjoys the cooperation of affiliates such as the FBI, CIA, MI6, NSA and even elements within the U.N. Although politically neutral and ethically amoral, the Agency avoids accepting hits ordered by enemies of its allies in government bureaus. In addition, most of 47's assigned assassination targets are criminals. The Agency uses “controllers” like Diana Burnwood as go-betweens with its agents. They provide freelance operatives like 47 with electronic correspondence and mission briefings. Contractors also sell intelligence briefings on the subjects of missions to their agents for the fee of USD 1,500 per file. In Hitman 2: Silent Assassin, 47's registration number in the Agency is BRO3886. To date, the Agency encountered and overcame a similar organization, known as The Franchise. The Agency managed to survive, though only 47 and Diana were left. In the 2007 Hitman film, which is set in another “universe”, the Agency is replaced by the Organization. Like the Agency, the Organization benefits from ties to various government agencies, is neutral in global affairs and morality, and performs missions all over the world. Unlike the game wherein the hitmen are contracted from a range of backgrounds, the Organization instead recruits orphans and trains them from an early age. However, when 47 ties FSB agent Yuri Marklov to a bathtub, and a clock ticks in a laptop, the name of ICA is clearly visible in the laptop, instead of Organization. Organization The Agency has ties to several major governments in the CIA (via Agent Smith), FBI (prior to The Franchise taking it from them), MI5, and Interpol. They are especially friendly with the United Nations; after 47 prevented a terrorist attack at their summit in 1996, they began a tight business relationship. This later resulted in the Agency making an exception to their rule of not killing former clients, when 47 was asked to kill Sergei Zavorotko for his possession of WMDs. Shortly beforehand, 47 was under strict orders not to kill any UN soldiers while on a mission in Afghanistan. The UN wanted to gain information from 47's target before he was sniped, showing that the Agency does not have a strict allegiance to the UN. The end of Hitman: Blood Money shows one of their offices, perhaps a headquarters, having a beautiful view of the river bay in Copenhagen, Denmark. Leadership Hitman: Enemy Within describes their board of directors in detail. Their leader is an unidentified male with a deep voice, who does not show his face (also demanding of middle management like Diana to show their faces as little as possible), and their board of directors consist of; * Aheem Shbot (Former Iraqi minister, with a stolen $25 million fortune from the war) * Jose Sosa (Venezuelan oil minister) * Frank Tang (High-ranking member of a Chinese tong, or crime ring) * Lalu "King of Whores" Khan (Leader of India's biggest prostitution network) * Dr. Natalia Luka (Arms dealer selling Russian nuclear weapons to the third world) * Hans Beck (German industrialist and aspiring politician) * Mary Minnarr (South African blood diamond mogul) * Mustapha Nour (Egyptian arms dealer, selling to terrorists) * Goto Osami (Japanese Yakuza member) * Aristotle Thorakis (Greek shipping mogul, who Agent 47 would later kill for selling information to their rival Puissanze Treize. He mainly lives in Greece, where he has both a countryside estate Kolomata and an Athens penthouse. He also owns a superyacht named Perseus ''and a vacation home in Sintra, Portugal.) Joe Sosa and Aristitle Thorakis are known to use their board positions to request assassinations. More than one of Sosa's rivals have died in car accidents, while Thorakis ordered at least three hits - Jose Alvarez (a Mexican cruise line owner rivaling Thorakis, who drowned in his pool even though he was an olympic swimmer 15 years ago. This was done by 47, who hid in his pool with scuba gear), Harry Meyers (a journalist who did an expose on Thorakis dumping toxic waste into the Atlantic, and seemingly killed himself two days before his wedding) and Countess Maria Sarkov (who was hit by a truck when walking the streets, after calling Mrs. Thorakis "an ugly pig" in a New York newspaper column). Agent 47 and Diana Burnwood Agent 47 is recognized as being the Agency's most efficient killer, an "urban legend" that is frequently requested by name from clients. He is also one of their most expensive, charging anywhere from $100,000 (low-rate) to $600,000 (in the cases of difficult targets like Deewana Ji or Sheikh Al-Khalifa) for his services. ''Enemy Within reveals that he personally kills only 3% of their targets, but makes them 37% of their income per year. It also shows that while 47 has a number because of a previous institution, other agents are simply called by name. 47's main contact in the agency, Diana, is the voice heard almost exclusively from all the games. There are only two other voices in Hitman 2: Silent Assassin: an unknown woman in the beginning, and Clera in The Graveyard Shift. Numerous assassinations can be attributed to the Agency, mainly due to 47's deadly skill. Being a member makes him an underground public representative. His success is their success, bringing more clients to them and himself. Such assassinations have come in the form of bombings, poisonings, sniper deaths, strangulations, 'accidentals', on top of numerous more specific other public killings. Making them a highly sought after organization that is known to get the job done. In Hitman: Absolution the ICA is planning to kill 47. Gallery HC47_-_ICA_Logo.png|ICA Logo in Hitman: Codename 47. ICA.jpg|The ICA logo in the other games. Trivia * It is also interesting to note that the Agency's logo itself is based on the original MI5 emblem replacing, along with the images themselves, the characters in the three corners, originally M, I, and 5, from left to right with IOI, for IO Interactive. * In the Saints ICA File trailer, it's mentioned in the documentation that the Agency apparently uses names of birds as ranks for its operatives. For example, the rank of some of the Saints is named as "Eagle" and documents suggest that one of the members, Heather McCarthy, should be hired as "rank Sparrow". * ICA is an angerman of CIA Category:Organizations Category:Hitman: Codename 47 Category:Hitman: Contracts Category:Hitman: Blood Money Category:Hitman 2: Silent Assassin Category:The Agency